Thermoelectric materials have attracted widespread attention in recent decades because of their ability to directly convert thermal energy into electrical energy. Given that waste heat is the primary source of lost energy in the world, the implications of developing better thermoelectric materials are both immediate and far-reaching. Admittedly, large progress...
Dual-phase (DP) steels have been widely applied in automobile industry, and are famous for continuous yielding in their corresponding stress-strain curves. The appearance of yield-point phenomena, or discontinuous yielding, is considered undesirable for DP steels. Herein, we take advantage of the undesirable appearance of yield-point phenomena in DP steels as...
The investigation of ceria-related materials has a long history since 1920s. The first publication on web of science traces back to 1928. Ever since that, more studies come out and surge starting from 1987. This material has attracted extensive attention due to its wide applications in electrochemical devices, catalysis, and...
Biological organisms have the extraordinary ability to form mineral structures with unparalleled control. From curved single crystals to hierarchically structured skeletal parts, biomineralization processes produce materials with properties that are highly optimized for their intended applications. These processing techniques occur at ambient conditions using materials abundant in the environment, and...
Multimetallic nanoparticles represent an important class of electrocatalysts which are critical for many energy and environmental applications including fuel cells, hydrogen production, and greenhouse gas elimination. The properties of these nanoparticles depend on their composition, size, shape, and structure. Therefore, developing new strategies which provide a high level of control...
Tooth enamel, the outermost layer of human teeth, is a complex, hierarchically structured biocomposite. The details of this structure are important in multiple human health contexts, from understanding the progression of dental caries (tooth decay) to understanding the process of amelogenesis (enamel formation) and related developmental defects.While much is known...
The three-dimensional (3D) nanoscale structure of III-As nanowires is correlated with optical and electronic property measurements to deconvolve the contributions of strain, composition, and crystal structure to characteristics of interest for future electronic and optoelectronic devices. Multiple advanced two-dimensional (2D) and 3D characterization techniques are employed such as atom probe...
There is considerable technical interest in the improvement of battery technology, as it would allow for the enhancement and realization of many different applications, including the continued miniaturization of portable computational devices, plug-in electric vehicles, and intermittent power storage. Lithium metal represents a theoretical limit on the anode energy density...
As demonstrated by efforts in graphene commercialization, scalable synthesis and high-quality material availability are primary limiting factors for the realization of technologies based on two-dimensional (2D) materials. Thus, in considering the fate of emergent 2D materials such as the metal chalcogenides, the challenge of scalable synthesis is a highly relevant...
Self-assembly of colloidal particles at the nano- and microscale has been a powerful tool for producing structures with emergent properties in applications ranging from electro-mechanical systems to photonics and biomedical devices. Great success has been achieved in experiments, where a variety of exotic phases have been discovered and even reconfigurable...
Recent advances in high-performance computing have resulted in massive databases of materials properties calculated with techniques such as ab initio density functional theory. In fact, some of the largest of such databases have calculations of nearly all distinct, ordered, experimentally-reported compounds. This thesis discusses the application of data in one...
There is no group of materials as diverse, complex, and ubiquitous as polymers. From plastic bags, to rubber tires, electronics, food packaging, water filtration and even aerospace applications, the penetration of polymer materials into all aspects of life make them very important materials throughout all engineering fields. However, this breadth...
The advancement of nanotechnology is at least partially dependent on the ability to synthesize and arrange complex nanostructures on a substrate. Nanolithography, or the patterning of materials at the sub-micrometer length-scale, has been traditionally performed using a number of methods such as conventional photolithography, ion-beam etching, and electron-beam lithography. While...
NiTi shape memory alloy (SMA) has drawn a great deal of attention for its various applications in the medical field (orthodontics, cardiovascular stents technology, etc.) and in other engineering fields (aerospace, aircraft, automotive, etc.) as it shows shape memory effect, superelasticity and biocompatibility. The fatigue-related issues, however, are pronounced in...
Physiochemical phenomena in aqueous systems, such as corrosion, catalysis, and energy storage, are driven by the molecular-scale interactions of ionic species with charged solid surfaces. In particular, an electrical double layer (EDL) of ions forms within nanometers of a charged surface. The properties of the EDL have been explored from...
The effect of interfaces in solids on the overall charge transport properties has become a topic of growing importance for energy materials such as thermoelectrics. In some polycrystalline thermoelectric materials, the performance near room temperature is significantly limited due to thermally-activated electrical conductivity near room-temperature, which can be attributed to...
Non-planar and curved architectures of otherwise flat 2D materials present an important paradigm for nanoscale analysis and design of emergent material properties. Atomically-thin transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have emerged at the forefront of the 2D materials field in recent years largely due to their attractive and tunable chemical, optical, and...
Melanin is a functional biopolymer most commonly associated with human skin pigmentation, where it serves as a radiation protection agent, shielding us from the harmful effects of UV radiation. However, melanin is also present in human ears, eyes, hair, and brains, serving a variety of functions. In fact, melanin...
Superconductivity is a fascinating manifestation of quantum mechanics on a macroscopic scale that has led to greater insights of the strongly correlated physics of a large number of interacting electrons ever since its discovery $\sim$ 100 years ago in elemental Hg. The unconventional superconductors that are based on uranium offer...
Exploratory phase stability analysis in Materials Science has two primary goals: (a) Characterizing the evolution of the materials single phase field in composition space to identify solubility and electronic dopability limits and (b) Accelerated prediction of new phases of technological importance. In this thesis we reorganize defect theory --- the...